1828 - 15 prominent women from Portland society petitioned the state legislature to incorporate as the Female Orphan Asylum of Portland (later the Children’s Home of Portland). The bill was enacted in February and on the first of April, the women opened a fully operational orphan “house” on the corner of Free & South...

1881 - Cornelius Sweetser dies; bequeathing funds to be used, "for the foundation, maintenance and support of an Orphan Asylum in Saco, to be called the Sweetser Orphan Asylum." It took three decades, but this was established on Moody Street in Saco.

Ruel Ricker was the first Sweetser farmer who lived with his family in the original farmhouse and raised horses, pigs and chickens, and supplied the campus with fresh vegetables. An annual Ricker Farm Day event has taken place for over thirty years each summer, as a tribute to him, his passion for farming and working the land. It continues to...

More Sweetser History

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